It is disclosed in EP 254 551 that porous carbon articles may be made by (a) partially curing a phenolic resin to a solid, (b) comminuting the solid, (c) forming the resulting comminuted solid into a pre-determined shape, (d) sintering the comminuted resin so as to give a form-stable sintered shaped product, and (e) carbonising the sintered shaped product, the temperature and duration of the curing step being selected so as to give a degree of cure sufficient to give a sinterable product.
The process described in EP 254 551 gives porous phenolic resins which can be converted to porous carbon articles by the carbonisation step. While the phenolic resin and carbon articles have moderately high degrees of macroporosity it is sometimes desirable to produce porous phenolic resin and carbon products with a more open pore structure and greater macroporosity than those produced by the process of EP 254 551. In this specification macroporosity is defined as the percentage volume porosity measured by mercury porosimetry (0.003 to 200 .mu.m). Such products may for example be used for catalyst supports or filter media.